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Saturday, June 12, 2010

New Orleans

Its 100+ degrees and humid as hell.I managed to get down to Bourbon street for a couple of hours and I'm still scratching my head.Its a frat party on steroids.You walk down the street and watch the creme of trailer park society eat, drink and vomit.Coctails with names like "Hurricane" and "Handgrenade" are sold in bright green takeaway containers.Shuffling, weaving white people bump tatoos as they lurch from bar to bar.Its 2pm on a Friday."Yeeeehaaa!"

It was 4pm and already the paramedics were busy.

The street has live music in every third or fourth bar, and apart from the prevailing 1970's and 80's redneck theme, (think Lynyrd Skynyrd) there IS Jazz on Bourbon Street.

Away from the French Quarter (not very far away) I took a sweaty, melting walk through the "warehouse district". The condos are popping up here and there but it still has a kind of broken down interesting vibe.

Not much more to report.

I don't really have much time to look around but I'll try and carve out a couple of hours over the next couple of days.

8 comments:

There is a large Black population, they just seem far better behaved than the white folks during the afternoon I was walking around.They seemed as bemused as I was to be frank.Jazz is everywhere just not the number 1 feature on Bourbon Street (during the day at least)

Hey Terry, next time try the Maple Leaf Bar....a real hole in the wall,way off the main drag...but authentic music...it's worth the cab ride to the outskirts of town!

You nailed the "best" of American culture with the beer pic...it's a great shot...could be any big US city...spend more time in New Orleans and the soulfulness of the city will get to you...it's one of my favourite citiesKim

My US uber-boss was in today, talking about places *not* to go to in America: Philadelphia seemed to attract particularly venomous wroth. Without prompting he also came up with the following quote: "Man, New Orleans; two blocks from Bourbon Street, you can get shot".

Then it all disintegrated into the usual: "don't boil the ocean", "tell them to pound sand", "you need to circle back with" / "reach out to", "she's drinking the company cool-aid,... from a fire hose". I could go on, but would start screaming.

About Me

I spend the majority of my life on the road for my job and this little travelogue fulfils two purposes:
It lets me document the little vignettes which unroll all around you if you take the time to pay attention. It also lets me live under the illusion that my job doesn't dictate every aspect of my life.